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Last Minute DIY: Coloring Easter Eggs Naturally

Happy Easter!It's only two days until Easter Sunday and maybe you are already enjoying the days off (like I do). Anyway this time I wanted to show you a little DIY just in time before the family celebrations start! I don't know how it is in other countries but Austria has a big tradition with colorful Easter eggs which has been around for decades.Growing up with this we often colored them ourselves when being kids but now as people are becoming more conscious about health and environment also this is changing.I wanted to color the eggs in a different way than using the coloring you can buy (and where you don't really know what's in it) and I found a way you can do the whole thing with natural products!First, I want to say that even this is last minute it will take some time and you may have to prepare some stuff. But I want to guide you through how I did it and what I would do differently next time.What you need: Eggs (how many you want, preferably white!), water, berries, herbs, tea, spices...Sadly it's quite hard to get white eggs where I am from but we at least got 10 eggs. I have now another five brown eggs bathing but I am not sure it will work with them (I will update this when it's done!!).We had some berries frozen so I took black currant and elderberries, also some leafs of stinging nettle, green and peppermint tea and curry. I cooked everything separate in some pots with water for up to 30min and then let it cool down. We used less than one liter for each ingredient to get more different shades. For example I took one table spoon of Curry for such a plastic cup (where about three eggs fit in), or a handful of stinging nettle.

We also cooked the eggs and let everything cool down and filtered it before I carefully put one egg after the other into the plastic cups with the colored water. I also read that you can draw patterns onto the eggs with a cotton bud and lemon juice before bathing them but this didn't really work out.

We left them bathing for about 2hrs checking constantly how the color is developing.

Even though the berry water looks quite pink the eggs turned out blue (both black currant and elderberry). Green and peppermint tea gave quite a brown water but the eggs came out in dark yellow while curry created a nice (and to no surprise) yellow color.

Black currant somehow seemed to build quite a thick layer onto the egg which may have happened because we didn't filter enough. But this created a nice marbled effect, because I rubbed off a bit of it before they were finished.

One problem we had was with the stinging nettle, the water wasn't green enough even after some hours so we skipped it. After leaving it for nearly 24hrs it created a nice green liquid, but since we only have brown eggs today I am not sure if it will work out (I will update this too!).

After their bath I put them into a plastic egg box to let them dry. Remember to turn them around and clean the plastic to get good dried egg. Somehow also all of the other eggs got marbled and also got a bit stained from the other eggs next to them, this is how a few of the blue ones got a bit yellow too.

I really like the outcome and I'm very pleased with it. It's only a bit disappointing that we only managed to achieve blue and yellow and no other color.

Black currant

Tea (Green and peppermint)

For red or pink you could use beetroot, for green also spinach and coffee would create a brown color. For a more intense color just add vinegar to the liquid.

Another way for a pattern would be to use candles and let the wax drop onto the eggs, let this cool and then bath the egg. Two-colored eggs can also be done by bathing only half of the egg with a second color but start first with the lighter and do the darker color second.

Have you ever tried coloring eggs? Or do you even have some recommendations for different colors?

I somehow even don't want to ruin and eat them!

Anyway, I wish you a nice weekend and if you like come back on Sunday for a new beauty post about a palette (you may have seen already on my Instagram!)

Update: I tried it also with brown eggs but it turned out really different. Elder Flower stained the egg in a really dark purply-brown, black currant somehow turned into a greyish light pink and they look like stones. It looks a bit marbled too. Overall I am not impressed with the brown eggs and stinging nettle didn't work at all on them (Maybe you need more of it, let it soak over night and use white eggs).

Black Currant on brown eggs

Love

Mina

X

(Please excuse the bad making-of pictures, I am at my parents home and it is quite hard to do nice pictures in the kitchen, even explaining why I am doing this...)

As I've been dyeing my hair for about 6 years now, they needed a new color pretty urgent! My last color didn't last long, I will explain this shortly at the bottom.Back to topic!This time I went for the Schwarzkopf Nectra Color which is pretty new I guess. I took the Color 400 - Dark Brown and it was about 6€ (with a little discount).

My hair color before was not as dark as the ones displayed at the back of the package. It is also pretty damaged and dry (I have been struggling with this for a while now :( )

Review: The smell of this color is amazing! I doesn't stink at all and afterwards nobody would know that I dyed my hair in the bathroom. Fortunately the amount was a lot so one package was enough for my hair. I was very pleased about this because the colors I used before where barely enough (more information at the bottom!). I left it in for 30min and then washed it out. First I thought I should have left it in longer because there was so much amount washing out. When my h…